Remembering My Visit to New London Ledge Lighthouse

It's a curious lighthouse, a cube of brick set on a concrete caisson with a lantern on top. When I first saw it from shore in 1975, I was struck by its unusual design. I had never seen another one like it, and still have not. It's Gothic...Empire...and rogue...all in one.

Fast forward to 1985, summer if I recall correctly--
Imagine my excitement when I met a guy named Brae Rafferty from Project Oceanology, known locally as Project O.  He came to a lecture I attended, and we talked lighthouse. He told me he regularly took high school students to Ledge Lighthouse and asked it I wanted to tag along on one of the trips. Of course, I said YES!!!!

On a cold October day in 1986, we boarded the Project O boat with about twenty students interested in marine biology. We headed to Great Gull Island first, where the students beachcombed with bags for their treasures. These would be taken back to the classroom for examination and discussion. Of particular interest were the seabirds. Something yummy abounded on and near Great Gull, and the birds were drawn to the feast.

I enjoyed the interaction with the students and the peace of Great Gull Island, but more exciting was being closer to Little Gull Lighthouse, a stone's throw to the west. It sat on a large concrete platform. I would later interview two women who lived on the lighthouse in the 1930s and take copious notes for my book, "Guardians of the Lights."

On the way back to the University of Connecticut (my Alma Mater!) satellite campus at Avery Point, home of Project O, the boat stopped at Ledge Lighthouse to let me off. As we neared the anchorage, three Coast Guardsmen appeared in the doorway and descended the stairs down the side of the caisson to the landing. Hands galore reached for mine! I was thirty-two at the time and a welcome guest on this bachelor outpost.

Courtesy www.lighthousefriends

"Careful, ma'am! The landing is slippery. Take my hand."

Indeed, it was. A thick greenish-brown slime covered the landing and first few steps.

"We try to keep it clean, but it's useless. As fast as the stuff is cleaned away, it forms again."

I was hauled out of the boat, onto the landing, and escorted arm-in-arm by two of the keepers. The wind was howling around that side of the lighthouse. One of the four men aboard the lighthouse was hanging onto the entry door so the wind would not wrangle or purloin it! I wondered how many doors had been loosed from their hinges in storms.

Warm air met my face. My cheeks were rosy by this time, a gift a boat ride usually bestows on me, especially on an autumn day. The warm kitchen of the lighthouse was a welcome place. The keepers slammed the door behind me and offered me a chair and coffee. I took their offer: It was the strongest coffee ever, on par with Navy coffee my husband had told me about..."toss a belaying pin into the pot, and if it doesn't sink, the coffee is ready!"

The four of them stood around, some with hands in pockets, some with their own coffee cups. I began asking questions about their lonely assignment at the lighthouse. Why four of them? One man proffered the explanation and informed me there actually were five men assigned to the lighthouse. Four were always in residence while the fifth man was ashore on leave.

"There's lots to do here," the 1st class bos'un said, the man in charge. "Weather reports, vessel reports, painting, cleaning, small repairs."

I learned that lots of shipping passed, including the subs from the Groton Submarine Base a few miles upriver. Of course, I already knew about the subs and the base, being a seasoned Navy wife by that time. Years later, I would learn about the submarine tender USS Fulton, tied up at the New London piers and also a Ledge Light passerby. My husband would serve as a weapons officer aboard the tender in the 1990s and glide by Ledge Lighthouse himself on a few ocean jaunts.

The Ledge Light keepers told me about their routine, about watches, about tending to the Vega beacon in the lighthouse lantern, about saving people in small boats, "mostly drunks," one said quietly. They also gave me a tour of the place. All the rooms were tidy. They never knew when the Lieutenant from the Coast Guard base would visit, so they had to keep things shipshape. It reminded me of the old U.S. Lighthouse Establishment inspections.

The youngest keeper, entranced with a female visitor, took me upstairs and showed me the bedrooms. His room was the smallest and the least comfortable, as he was the junior man aboard the lighthouse. I asked him if the sleeping was peaceful on the lighthouse, was it quiet and restful. He assured me it was, except when Ernie kept the staff up with his antics.

I had heard about Ernie, the famous ghost of Ledge Light. Varying stories about him claimed he was a keeper on the lighthouse after it was first placed in service in 1909. His wife came to live with him on the lighthouse but grew very lonely and homesick. Being cooped up with her husband 24/7 was not to her liking. She became restless.

Photo from anonalien.com

Among the regular visitors to the lighthouse in its early years was a local ferry captain. Ferries ran to Long Island and Fishers Island; thus, they came and went all day. The visiting ferry captain took to the keeper's wife immediately, and romance ensued. Eventually the keeper's wife informed him she was leaving, going ashore to be with her handsome boyfriend.

The keeper was heartbroken. Some days later, alone and distraught, he climbed to the top of the lighthouse, stepped out on the lantern gallery, and jumped to his death. It is his unhappy spirit that is said to haunt the lighthouse today.

Courtesy U.S. Coast Guard Historian

Fast forward to the early 1990s--
TV studios began calling and asking me if I would appear and talk about the ghost of Ledge Light. What I really desired was to tell some of the real history of the place, and I managed to drop a little of that into my TV interviews. But, truthfully, Ernie the ghost outshone the lighthouse itself. Few people cared to know its history and significance. Ernie was their sole interest.

Roll back to October 1985--
I heard plenty of stories from those Coast Guard guys about Ernie. They swore he moved things around, their plates and cups and books and papers. One guy saw him in the mirror as he was shaving. Another swore Ernie picked up a pillow and tried to suffocate the keeper. He seemed playful but also angry.

Photo from ledgelighthouse.org by Todd Gipstein -- beautiful shot from the lantern showing those amazing diagonal window frames! (And thanks to Todd for his devoted work at Ledge Lighthouse.)

"Take me to the lantern," I requested. By this time, Brae Rafferty had returned from Project O, having bid his students farewell and come to the lighthouse to see how I was faring. We passed through the so-called rec-room with the youngest keeper. He mentioned that Ernie often turned on the TV at random times. The inspecting Lieutenant had blamed it on electrical issues. Ernie also rearranged things on shelves.

A likeness of crusty, old Ernie, perhaps? Photo from newenglandboating.com

Shelves...yes. As we stood in the rec-room, I perused the movie titles and books. There was a significant amount of porn. Brae shrugged. What could I expect from military guys sequestered together on a lonely lighthouse? The entertainment likely reflected their youthful obsessions.

We climbed the stairs to the second floor and then the final stairway to the lantern. No hint of Ernie. If he was hanging about, he didn't want to greet me or Brae. In the lantern, it was warm. The inside windows were clean, as was the optic and its electrical apparatus. I loved the diagonal window frames (officially called astragals) and told Brae what I knew about them, that they allowed rain and snow to slide away easier than square, horizontal frames and that they eliminated false flashes, whereby light reflects off windows and interferes with the true signature of the beacon. Diagonal lantern windows were designed by one of the Stevenson family of Scottish marine engineering fame, an ancestor of Robert Louis Stevenson. Brae told me I was a "lighthouse encyclopedia." (If we could talk now, he's be sure of it!)

The view from the lantern was amazing. I thought about what one of the keepers had said. The men could see the mainland on three sides of them, they could smell Sunday BBQs and hear the sounds of New London and Groton. A mere mile separated them from fun and excitement, as well as their wives and girlfriends. But, they had the best viewing spot in the area when July 4th fireworks were shot off from a barge in the Thames River about a quarter mile north of the lighthouse.

Not long after my visit with the keepers, the Coast Guard began sealing up the lighthouse for automation. The windows all were covered with heavy, waterproof, blue boards. The door was sealed and secured with an imposing lock. In 1987 the keepers were taken off the light, and it was officially closed up. 

It was sad, yes, but also a cost-savings. A Lieutenant in charge of the New London Coast Guard base told me all about LAMP (Lighthouse Automation and Modernization Program). Her points were valid. Keeping five men on the lighthouse was expensive, an annual price tag of more than $150,000. After the lighthouse was automated, that money went elsewhere, to fund Search & Rescue, policing of the waters, educating the public, and maintaining all AtoN (Aids to Navigation) in the area, from simple daymarks to pole beacons to buoys to fog signals to lighthouses, which under the program only needed checkups every six months.

The USCG was saving money, and Ledge Lighthouse was participating in that endeavor. I understood and sympathized. Yet, it seemed the lighthouse and its sister sentries ought to be saved and opened to the public so that all of us might learn what it meant to be a lighthouse keeper. In 1987, when Ledge Light went automatic, that sort of preservation movement was in its infancy. Over the next decade, it grew and grew. In 2000, the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act passed in Congress. It was a means to pass on historic lighthouses to worthy preservation groups.

Only a few years ago, the New London Historical Society applied for and was awarded Ledge Lighthouse. It now has its own preservation/education group too, and it is a public destination. We can all go there now and learn about why it was built and what life was like for its keepers. (Visit ledgelighthouse.org and see a video from WTNH News * TV here.) 

I wonder though, is Ernie happy about this evolution of the lighthouse? Perhaps I should join one of the tours and find out for myself. He might even remember me from 33 years ago! Or not.

'Round about 33 years ago...

P.S. There are no records I can find that indicate a keeper ever died at Ledge Lighthouse, nor one whose wife deserted him for a ferry captain. Most of us believe Ernie is an imaginary ghost, cooked up by bored light keepers to impress visitors to the lighthouse....especially a thirty-two-year-old lady who came to visit the lighthouse in October 1986. My feelings on the matter? 

"Booooooooo!!!!!!"